February in my vegetable garden

What to do in the vegetable garden in February in Melbourne (Australia)

February in My Green Garden

This month, traditionally the hottest in Melbourne, will mainly see me enjoying – and preserving – the fruits of my labours by eating!

Pick, pick and pick more still, to keep the plants producing more. If I let seeds fully develop on the fruiting vegies, such as beans, cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes, the plant feels that it has done what it needs to do in evolutionary terms and so will happily allow itself to die back. But if I keep picking, they will keep producing until thoroughly exhausted.

Some of the harvest I will deliberately let go to seed, so that I can keep the same varieties for next year. This is a great practice to keep heirloom varieties continuing as well as saving money buying new seed each year.

An occasional feed now of the produce plants with some liquid comfrey that has been brewing for a few weeks won’t go astray, to supplement the now depleted soils on the heavy feeding plants. If you don't brew your own fertiliser, any organic feed, such as Charlie Carp is also suitable.

Otherwise I just need to keep watering and starting to get rid of plants that may have finished. If I get around to it, some seed sowing in punnets may happen towards the end of this month, but it is just too hot right now. New plants won’t go in until March or even April, but soil preparation can certainly happen, by adding some of the beautiful compost that has been quietly but busily maturing while I’ve been out relaxing!

IN THE KITCHEN OF MY GREEN GARDEN

All of this food production puts my kitchen into hyper-drive too. The preserving jars come out and get a workout.

There are still blood plums maturing so some bottling and some freezing of stewed fruit will happen

Pickles from green tomatoes, eggplants and zucchini continue. Done Italian-style (sott’olio or under oil) is a process which can take 2-3 days but is well worth it.

Ripe tomatoes will be made into peeled and bottled toms. This is done in different sized jars so that when a recipe calls for peeled tomatoes, I just choose the jar size to suit.

Some varieties of tomatoes I grow specifically to make our own dried or semi-dried tomatoes. The dehydrator hardly gets a break this month but it is an economical way of drying fruit and veg when the outdoors weather doesn't allow it. Solar energy though will be used to dry oregano, which I think tastes better than fresh.

Basil is being made into pesto and then frozen in jars and ice-cube trays, in family-sized portions.

February and March are the prime harvest months in Melbourne which makes this is all an on-going process because not everything ripens at once and so I am regularly doing small batches, rather than having one big preserving day. But if you can get seasonal fruit and veg cheaply from your greengrocer and organise a few friends to have a big weekend of chopping and cooking and chatting, all the better!

PS And we're gearing up for one of the biggest preserving days of the year: Passata Day.

Maria Ciavarella is My Green Garden, a business that provides a local and experienced resource for talks, demonstrations and workshops for councils and community groups, at festivals and at her home on many aspects of sustainable gardening practices, especially in the area of growing food, preserving food and cooking with the bounty of the organic garden.